A recent Issue of the Memphis Commercial Appeal carried an artist’s drawing of the Oscar Johnston Memorial Building, which will be completed by July 11, is on North Parkway in Memphis, and, not far from the campus of Southwestern University.
The building will house the National Cotton Council, and is fittingly named since the council itself was, and is, the brainchild of Greenville's Oscar Johnston. A plaque near the entrance will tell those who enter, as well as passers-by, that Mr. Johnston organized the National Cotton Council, was for ten years its president, and now is the permanent chairman of its board.
It is only natural for our old friend to be pleased by such solid recognition of his worth. And we believe that many heartstrings will be touched by this quote from Oscar's personal letter of appreciation to the Cotton Council.
"What a wonderful thing for my friends to send me flowers while I yet live to catch their fragrance!"
Skeptics tell us there is no such thing as the indispensable man. Could be but, if so, why don’t Ike and Ezra come up with a man of Oscar Johnston's stripe who can work off present-day farm surpluses like Oscar did with cotton during the first six years of the Roosevelt administration?
Much is being said about the butter problem bill, if anything is being done, we haven't heard of it. Oscar Johnston would have known what to do. He'd have formed a hook-up with the State Department, hired a group of fair-haired lads to turn out attractive copy and, by this time, the forgotten, fat-starved peoples of this earth would be butter-conscious. Fact is, with Mars so close to us this month, Oscar might be bouncing beams of radar, soaked in butter, off the contours of that very planet.
The sign on the door of Room 200, Kings Daughters Hospital, read "Patient Sleeping, Please Do Not Disturb," so we kept walking down the corridor.
A few strides brought the sun parlor into focus, and there we spied the patient, Mr. Will Shackelford of Rosedal, taking his ease and chatting up a storm with his nurse, Mrs. Ella Puckett. When we joined them, they were trying to discuss the Dr. Walker family on North Hinds Street, Mrs. Puckctt was saying that Mrs. Walker passed away this spring and that her husband, Dr. Walker, had preceded her in death by a good many years.
Mr. Shackelford was admitting that Dr. Walker had been dead a good many years, but that he had no recollection of Mrs. Walker, since he had not had the good fortune of living in Greenville during her lifetime.
Old Stuff now entered the discussion to tell Airs. Puckett and Mr. Shackelford that they had different Walkers in mind, though both families had, indeed, lived on North Hinds Street.
Dr. Jim Walker, we explained for Mrs. Puckett's information, banker and business-man, lived in the park (Balnton Park, which is Hinds Street between Washington and Alexander), in the house now occupied by his daughter, Mrs. Lyne Starling. He was on the levee board when Mr. Will Shackelford was chief engineer. This was in 1907 or thereabouts.
Dr. J.W. Walker, continued Old Stuff, for Mr. Shackelford's benefit, was a planter and practicing physician in the Lake Washington and Lake Jackson area at about that same time. When he died, his family moved to Greenville and bought a home on North Hinds, between Alexander and O'Hea Streets. His son Dave Walker is a friend of ours, and is quite an authority on strawberry culture.
Mr. Shackelford's face lit up, and we thought it was the mention of strawberries which did the trick. For Mr. Will still gardens actively, and strawberries and tomatoes are his specialties. But it was a happy flashback of memory instead, quote:
"Say, I knew that Dr. Walker too, met him lots of limes during surveys and high-water flights. Didn't he live near the pear orchard at Longwood?"
He surely did, Mr. Shackelford, and Dave Walker, of course, can pinpoint the exact location.
B.C.
